Improvised Explosive Device
by in48frames
Summary: Gail wants to forget about Nick. Cosima just wants.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:**_"God, no wonder he's falling for Andy." After Chloe's comment in Rookie Blue 4x04, Gail walks into a bar-the same bar where Sarah and Cosima hung out in Orphan Black 1x03. The timeline clings more to RB than OB.__ Note that it begins before Holly and Gail ever meet._

* * *

The blonde enters like a hurricane, the storm on her face rivaling the one outside. As she looks over the room, she stomps her boots on the mat, hanging her dripping overcoat by the door and combing her fingers through her wet hair. Without a change in expression, she strides straight for the bar.

Cosima sees all this in the mirror, watching as the blonde leans across the bar to place her order. Before the last word leaves her mouth her eyes flick up and immediately find Cosima's in the mirror. Her eyebrows twitch up and Cosima inclines her head slightly, and when the blonde is served she carries her drink over and slides onto the stool at Cosima's side.

"Looks like you need that," Cosima says, gesturing with her drink before raising it to her lips.

In response, the blonde lifts her drink and downs it in one, indicating for another before letting the glass fall heavy on the polished wood. Once the bartender nods, she turns to Cosima, leaning one arm on the bar and looking her over more appraisingly. "Could say that."

Cosima grins and sticks out her hand, saying, "Pleased to meet you. I'm Cosima."

Recoiling a bit and keeping her hands where they are, the blonde says, "Oh god, you aren't going to be cheerful, are you?"

Shrugging, Cosima drops her hand and her smile and turns back to face the bar. "Nah. Just friendly. I like people."

"You know, I really don't," the blonde says mildly. Despite her attitude, she doesn't stop looking at Cosima. "I'm Gail, by the way. Cosima is an interesting name."

Cosima half-smiles and nods down at her drink.

"You're very… interesting," Gail says, turning to the mirror to see Cosima's face straight-on. "You're beautiful.

A bigger smile takes her face and Cosima tilts her head at the mirror. "Thank you. So are you, though I bet you get that a lot."

Face darkening, Gail says, "Fat lot of good that did me," and knocks back the second drink the bartender has placed before her. She indicates again and Cosima adds her request for two glasses of water.

"Let me guess, a… guy? Girl?" There's a hopeful lilt to the latter option, though Cosima coughs awkwardly to hide it.

"Mmm," Gail says, and just that, staring down at her empty glass.

"Well." The bartender brings their drinks and Cosima picks up her half-full scotch to clink against Gail's fresh whiskey. "Here's to alcohol." She takes a sip and nudges one glass of water in Gail's direction. "And to preventing hangovers."

"Some occasions are worth the hangover," Gail says darkly. "Don't you think?"

"Sure," Cosima concedes, then directs her piercing gaze into the mirror at Gail. "Of course, there are other ways to deal with occasions like that."

"True," Gail says, and gestures behind her at the empty room without turning from the mirror. "But."

Cosima smirks and says, "It is a Tuesday. Although I… uh."

At that, Gail turns slowly back and cocks her head, says flatly, "What?"

Something lights in Cosima's eyes (_a question!_) and she straightens up, before launching into a rapid explanation punctuated by broad manual gestures. "I'm sure you've heard of the Kinsey scale, it seems to be pretty big with our generation. Naturally the concept has some flaws, but the idea that people all possess degrees of such-and-such sexuality has merit; of course, every characteristic comes in degrees—for example, one person may be, to use an arbitrary numbers scale, a ten out of ten in soccer, a seven out of ten in baseball, and a two out of ten in oil painting. Another person raised in exactly the same environment, or possibly even the same person raised in a different environment, could be a ten out of ten in singing, and a three out of ten in football. Everything about humans is in degrees—consider hair colour. Eye colour. Vocal range. It's really quite fascinating stuff."

When she comes up for air, she sees that Gail is leaning slightly away, looking as though she's readying to bolt or press her silent alarm. Cosima pauses and presses her fingertips to her forehead, then looks up and says, "What I'm saying, actually, is that I," she touches a palm to her chest, "fall somewhere in the murky middle," she swirls circles with her hands, "where gender is not so much a factor in my sexual attractions."

Looking thoroughly unimpressed, Gail says dryly, "You know you could have said that in, like, five words, right?"

Cosima grins a little and turns back to the bar, spinning a bit too far on her stool and a bit too far back. She picks up her glass and says, "I'm a talker, what can I say," before tipping the rest of her drink into her mouth and down her throat.

Gail watches this, looks from her empty glass to Cosima's and then back to Cosima's neck. She leans forward just slightly, not even almost invading personal space, and licks her bottom lip. "Do you live around here?"

"Now I wonder why you would ever ask that," Cosima says, lightly teasing, but Gail immediately turns and puts her hand in the air for the bartender. Cosima closes more of the distance between them, lays her hand on Gail's bare knee, and says, "Hey." She smiles slightly and tilts her head as Gail turns back with a challenge to the set of her jaw and the angle of her eyebrow. The expression makes Cosima's smile grow a titch, and she says, "My hotel is just around the corner."

Gail drums her fingers on the bar and narrows her eyes. "I'm not interested in a run-around."

"No run-around. You're beautiful, I have a hotel room, simple as that."

Face dropping back to neutral, Gail dips her chin and raises her shoulder: half a nod, half a shrug.

Cosima picks up her hand and slides the glass of water toward Gail again. "Drink this first."

A slightly incredulous look and Cosima's turn to shrug.

"I'm a big fan of conscious consent."

###

To Gail, it's just a thing. A thing she's doing to drown out Chloe's voice; _No wonder he's falling for Andy._ A thing to remind herself she is desirable, she's alive, she's a person of her own.

It isn't until Cosima's mouth is hot on her flesh, searing into her skin, that her mind delivers up _This is cheating._ Technically, officially, in every way you can possibly describe it, this is cheating.

So she brings Cosima's face up to hers and kisses her with her eyes open, glasses and lashes and porcelain skin shifting in and out of focus. She reaches for Cosima's waistband, backing toward the bed as she unbuttons, unzips, folds denim away and presses the back of her hand to Cosima's skin.

As they fall onto the bed, Gail's back bouncing off the mattress, Cosima pushes herself up on her arms and says, "Are you going to regret this?"

"Who cares?" Gail replies, and Cosima seems to accept it, assigning her mouth to more important things than talking. For her part, Gail assigns her mind to sensations, living directly in her body, in the outsides and the parts that are touching Cosima and the parts that are covered in clothing and shouldn't be.

These are things she can control. These are things she _will_ control.


	2. Chapter 2

Later, it's Gail who falls asleep, strangely, unusually, perhaps too focused on her body to keep up the regular guards. Or she was just sleepy. Gail prefers that explanation.

When she wakes up, just slightly, Cosima is dressed and across the room. Gail watches through her eyelashes as Cosima reaches for Gail's purse, looks toward the bed, and then pulls Gail's wallet out. She opens it and fingers delicately through the cards, before stopping cold on one.

"She's a cop," Cosima whispers, and Gail has to stop herself from reacting. There's generally only one sort of person shocked or dismayed by a person's employment as a police officer: someone with something to hide. Gail grew up watching these reactions—and hearing her mother summarize them later: "Did you see how shifty his eyes were? Did you notice that terrible laugh? You'd think after so many lies they would develop some level of finesse."

It's just a one-night stand, she thinks. It doesn't matter if she has a criminal past or she's on the run; there's no relationship and Gail doesn't have to follow up on it; she doesn't even know Cosima's last name.

Still her mind catalogues:

Name: Cosima

Age: 24-ish

Hair: Brown

Eyes: Brown (Hazel? Brown. Hazel. Not really that relevant.)

Distinguishing marks: Tattoos, definitely tattoos. Gail has a pretty good visual memory; it will have to do.

The truth is, she likes Cosima. She knows almost nothing about her, but she has spirit—lively, gregarious, bursting-out-of-her spirit, and though it's so foreign to Gail, she likes it. She thinks she probably has a good heart. She _knows_ she's good in bed. She wouldn't mind seeing her again… Well, if she weren't seeing Nick. Which she guesses she still is.

So, she doesn't particularly want to investigate Cosima, but for such an interesting person, she's likely to have just-as-interesting secrets. Gail is a cop through and through, was practically born to be a cop; it's in her blood, what can she do?

And she needs to think about something—anything—other than Nick, and what she's just done to Nick.

Once Cosima replaces Gail's wallet and wanders off to the kitchen of her suite, Gail gets up and dresses quickly, quietly. She sticks her head in the kitchen and says, "I'm heading out," and Cosima, startled, says, "Okay!" and Gail leaves.

At the turn that divides the drive home from the drive to the station, she hesitates for just a moment before turning home. The temptation, at a stoplight on empty streets at 3am, is to go to the station to use the computer there, but a) it's illegal to use police resources for personal reasons, and this definitely qualifies, b) there is no logical explanation she could give for her presence there off-shift, and c) there are literally always people there, so she would be guaranteed to get caught.

Not that she would _really_ break the rules like that, anyway. She's pretty sure of that.

But her curiosity doesn't die, so she gets home, pops a cork, and opens her laptop. Since Cosima is staying in a hotel, Gail surmises she doesn't live in Toronto. That gives Gail about… a hundred thousand options.

Although they didn't talk much—well, Gail didn't talk much, and she tried to stop Cosima, but she got on these rolls… Anyway, Cosima _did _mention that she was working on her PhD, so Gail does a search for "Cosima PhD candidate" and really should not be surprised that the very first result is Cosima Niehaus's University of Minnesota PhD candidate profile, complete with bespectacled and be-dreadlocked photo.

"Well, all right then," she says, and takes a swig of wine.

There's not much to go on there—her area of study, education history, and awards—and none of it means anything to Gail. She looks up, eyes flicking from side to side, and then types "Cosima Niehaus" into the search engine. (Her investigative prowess is really just stunning, cop blood and all.)

There, again, are articles and papers that feature Cosima's name on them somewhere and that mean absolutely nothing to Gail. Anything truly juicy would probably not be on the first page of a basic internet search, anyway. She shrugs and navigates back to Cosima's profile, finding her office number and hesitating over it through another glass of wine.

_Hey Cosima, I just got home and realized I forgot to ask you... why you care that I'm a cop and what secrets you're hiding, because I know you have some._

_Hey Cosima, I just checked my purse and realized that you went through my wallet, so what's that about?_

_Hey Cosima, shit! I must have left my... sense of curiosity in your hotel room. Any chance you could get that back to me?_

Finally, she types the number into the phone, and when Cosima's voicemail picks up, Gail says quietly (thin walls, shared apartment), "Hey, Cosima. It's Gail. I realize we didn't exchange numbers but I thought I might like to see you next time you're in Toronto, so here's mine: xxx-xxx-xxxx. As for how I got your number... well, you have a pretty good idea. Bye."

She has now officially turned this into not-a-one-night-stand, and she has no idea what to do about Nick, but she's had enough wine to go to bed and pass right out, so she does that.

Gail sleeps deeply that night, but she jolts awake with the sunrise and a pounding headache. Her first thought is Nick, and she reaches blindly for her phone, taps out a text to a girl she knows on the opposite shift, asking to trade with her for a few days. Then she takes two Advil and goes back to bed.

The thing is, he doesn't really notice. He doesn't blow up her phone with texts; Dov tells her Nick asks him if Gail rode in with them that day, but he doesn't follow up when Dov says no. The boys watch and wonder, when they wake up and she's on the couch with a blender of margaritas and the Real Housewives.

"Something going on with you and Nick?" Chris asks, and she uses a patented _You did not just ask that_ look to silence him and make him walk away.

But sometimes they talk in the kitchen; they say that Nick is riding with Andy, or Nick is riding with Chloe but always talking about Andy, and Chloe told them what she said to Gail in the first place. They know, but they don't know what to do about it.


	3. Chapter 3

And then Ross Perik comes back, and she has to revisit the very worst day of her life, and without even pausing for breath Nick finds out about her cheating and they're breaking up and he's into Andy, and when she leaves his truck she has a voicemail from Cosima.

"Hey, Gail! So, I'm back in town! I know, I could have given you more notice, but hey... want to get together? My number is xxx-xxx-xxxx and I'm at the same hotel. So... call me! Tonight, if you can! Bye!"

And Gail's insides feel like they're in one of her margarita blenders, she's actually speed-walking away from Nick's truck and ducks behind a cruiser to puke on the pavement. She's felt worse, and her mind automatically makes a list of where and when, but this is pretty fucking shitty and she can't deny it. She stays crouched behind that cruiser, giving her stomach a chance to settle, spitting to the side until her mouth is clear. Then she calls Cosima back.

"Hey. Will you let me drink too much if I give you a written contract of consent first? Awesome. Give me your room number and I'll be there in twenty. I'll bring the booze."

She finds the nearest liquor store on her phone and hops on the streetcar (she wouldn't admit it to anyone, but cabs still creep her out, and after today, lord almighty), hops off to buy a cheap bottle of tequila, and hops back on to get to the hotel. Her foot taps rapidly in the elevator, and when Cosima opens her door Gail pushes past her, saying, "I need to get as wasted as possible as quickly as possible."

"Okay," Cosima replies. She takes a quick read of the situation and starts rattling off rapid-fire questions: "When did you last eat? How hydrated are you? When did you wake up this morning? How many hours did you work? Did you eat lunch? Breakfast? Sign this," and she pushes a sheet of paper across the coffee table where Gail has set up her bottle and glasses in a neat row.

It is a hand-written contract, reading, "I, the undersigned, do hereby consent to basic sexual acts while intoxicated, including but not limited to" and then a few unmentionable words. "I reserve the right to void this contract if I later discover I participated in sexual acts to which I would otherwise not have given my consent."

Gail shrugs and signs it, and Cosima takes a picture of it with her phone, emailing it to herself before fiddling with the calculator.

"I know you're not going to listen to me, but just as a guideline, two drinks are gonna get you tipsy, five drinks are gonna get you drunk, and seven or above will involve me calling 911. Capisce?"

Gail's attention is focused on the first drinks she's pouring into the hotel-issue glasses. She goes with one finger a drink, so she can toss it back like a shot and take another.

"Also, you know that booze takes a while to get into your bloodstream and you're likely going to have time to drink a lot before you actually start to feel it."

Gail pushes one glass across the table at Cosima, who is sitting cross-legged on the floor. "You might have to do some distracting, then," she says, knocking back the first drink and immediately pouring another.

"Yeah," Cosima replies, and picks up her glass with both hands, taking a tiny sip, her eyes on Gail. "I don't suppose you want to talk—"

"Nope," Gail all but barks, drinking again.

"Okay, but I also don't want to get my tongue bitten off if I stick it in your mouth."

Pouring the next shot, Gail pauses and cocks her head, thinking about it. She clacks her teeth together contemplatively and then says, "Good point," and leans back on the couch with her drink. She looks at Cosima properly for the first time, and sighs. "You're still beautiful."

Cosima can't help it, compliments make her grin. "Thank you." Seeing some of Gail's defenses come down, she gets up from the floor and joins her on the couch. Putting one hand on the arm beside Gail's head, Cosima leans over her, says, "Distraction?" and goes in for the kiss.

Gail cringes.

"Wow, okay, not on that page anymore. Gotcha." Cosima quickly pulls herself back and over to the far arm of the couch. She pulls herself in a little, too, keeping her limbs close and ducking her head.

"No, no." Gail sighs again, a very different sigh, and runs a hand through her hair. "I threw up earlier, sorry. I'm gross. I came straight here."

Looking sideways at her, Cosima says, "Are you sick? Norovirus? Should I be worried? Oh God, please no," and although she starts out teasing, an edge of panic creeps into her voice.

"God, no?" Gail looks at her funny, like that's uncommon. "I wouldn't knowingly bring you the potential for puking. You've gotta know _that_ much about me, or, like, not invite me back to your hotel room."

"Sorry," Cosima says, looking away. "You're right. A friend—a family member of mine was sick… It just got me all freaked out." A pause, then she looks at the tequila shots and mutters, "Alcohol kills germs, anyway."

Gail laughs out loud. "I guess that's one way to look at it. Can I just go, like, freshen up?"

"Of course," Cosima says grandly, waving to the bathroom like Vanna White.

Picking up her bag, Gail shuts herself in the washroom, turning to the mirror and leaning on the counter with both hands splayed. She looks… fine. A little pale (considering). She wishes, looking at herself, that she brought a drink with her, and then sighs and pulls out her makeup bag, touching up her face and stealing a little toothpaste to clean out her mouth.

She can't stand the feel of her own skin and she isn't at all sure she'll be able to stand the feel of Cosima's, which means she may have come here under false pretenses. Holding her own eye contact, scanning her face, she hates being a physical being.

As she turns the knob and clicks open the door, she hears voices suddenly and halts. The hum of Cosima's voice is too low to make out words, but the other is loud. Loud and female and English.

"I don't have time for this, Cosima! We need to do something! How can you tell me to wait when you know—"

More of Cosima's hum, urgent and hushed.

"I don't care about your fucking dalliance. This is—"

Frustration making her words clear, Cosima says, "She's a _fucking cop_, Sarah."

A pause. "Fuck. How did you pull that one off?"

"It wasn't—"

Not wanting to risk hearing more, Gail opens the door and steps out, beginning to say "Sorry to interrupt" and stopping dead when she gets a look at Sarah and Cosima's faces side-by-side, way-too-similar expressions of surprise as they look her way.

"Whoa. British twin?"

Putting a hand to her forehead, Cosima sighs like the weight of the world is on her shoulders. "Yes. British twin." With her free hand, she gestures between the other women. "Gail, Sarah. Sarah, Gail."

"Good to meet you," Sarah says tersely, turning back to Cosima.

"Listen, I'll get out of your hair," Gail replies, going for her bottle of tequila and sticking it in her bag on her way to the door.

Cosima follows her that far and puts a hand on her arm. "I'm sorry about this," she says softly.

Shrugging, Gail doesn't look at her. "It sounds important."

"Cosima!" Sarah's voice is sharp.

"Yeah." Cosima dips her head and shakes it, reaching to rub at the bridge of her nose. Her glasses slip down and Gail reaches up to fix them, then brushes her hand across Cosima's cheek.

"It's not a big deal," Gail says, though she can already feel the deadening inside, the desire to swig from the bottle.

"I'm sorry," Cosima says again, with some of that deep eye contact she loves so much.

Another shrug, pulling open the door and looking back. "I'll see you later. Or whatever."

She just barely hears Cosima's "Bye" before the hotel door shuts heavily.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:**_ I'm claiming Cosima was adopted. It doesn't really matter, just go with it._

* * *

At the apartment, Gail settles herself again with her laptop and her bottle of tequila. She tries to remember what Cosima said about numbers of drinks and what number she's on now, but she literally could not have less of a clue, so she just swigs. At the search engine, she types in combinations of "Cosima Niehaus sister" and "Sarah Niehaus" and "British twins," turning up absolutely nothing of use.

"That's weird," she murmurs. She finds an adoption record for Cosima Niehaus, but no mention of a sister or a twin, and no birth records under either name or combination of names. By this time her fingers are fumbling over the keyboard and hitting more wrong keys than right, so she puts the computer away and gets a glass of water, going to bed.

Her dreams are slow-motion flights through halls of mirrors, tiny brunettes around every corner. Their faces fade in and out of focus, sometimes wearing glasses, sometimes not.

When she wakes up, a few hours before her overnight, she can't walk a straight line and she suddenly realizes that she has a problem with alcohol. She trades shifts again and goes back to bed to sleep it off. But first, she checks her phone, and finds a voicemail from Cosima.

"Hey, Gail." Her voice is hushed, noises in the background. "I wanted to apologize again. Shit has hit the fan over here and I don't know… I can't ask for your help, but we're running out of options. Um, just call me back, I guess. Or not. It's up to you."

_Huh_, she thinks, before passing out again. _My help?_

Waking up again, she feels hungover but definitely, definitely sober. In fact, the pounding in her head says, _Sober, sober, sober_, and she calls Cosima with her face pressed into the pillow.

"Hello?"

"Hey," Gail says into the pillow. "What's up?"

Cosima still sounds hushed, rushed, urgent. "I can't talk about it on the phone. I'm not sure I can tell you about it at all. Can you meet me?"

"Uh." Gail's brain goes on alert, through the layer of hangover fuzz. "Sure. Where?"

"Okay, uh, let's go back to the bar where we met. It's unlikely there will be any listening ears."

"This sounds serious. Should I—I mean, should I be prepared for anything?"

"No, no." Cosima doesn't sound sure. "We'll just be talking."

It's something like 2am, but Gail has been sleeping for… a while. To be at her best, she mainlines a couple cups of coffee and pops more Advil. Just an officer, her gun is at the station, but of course she has a small knife—she straps it on her belt just in case. What the hell has she gotten herself involved in? She'll find out today, she guesses, or hopes, or maybe she hopes she'll find out she's not needed at all and can get out of this before—whatever. Jesus.

At the bar, Cosima is hunched over a glass of wine, looking up as Gail joins her. She's tense, twitchy, not at all the Cosima Gail first met all those weeks ago.

After Gail sits down, Cosima is silent for a while, before saying, "I need to know that I can trust you."

"Because I'm a cop? I do have certain duties."

"Yeah—well—I'm not trying to involve you in anything criminal. It's more of a…"

"Yeah?" Gail asks.

"My sister… she has a daughter."

"Okay…"

"Her daughter. She's missing. But we can't involve the police."

"Are you serious?"

Cosima stares into her wine. "There are a lot of moving pieces. We can't involve the police… at this juncture."

Gail stares at her incredulously. "So how exactly do you expect to find her missing daughter?"

"I guess I was hoping… you would have some ideas."

"Some ideas for finding a missing child without involving the police."

Cosima sighs into her wine glass. "Yeah."

"Okay." Gail takes a deep breath. "Okay, we're going to go with this for just a second." She pauses, turns it over in her mind. "I really hate to ask. Do you know who took her?"

After a second, Cosima says, "We think we do."

"Jesus Christ." Gail gestures to the bartender and orders a glass of Coke.

Cosima gives her a look.

"I'm taking a break from the booze. Sue me."

Putting her hands up in a gesture of surrender, Cosima waves her on.

"Honestly, without the details, the full picture, I don't see how you think I can help you."

"Well, let's say someone powerful took her. Someone with people, money, the whole shebang."

"It sounds like you need a fucking ETF breach. What am I supposed to do?"

"We were hoping you might… might be able to find some information, at least. Something to negotiate with."

"And risk my job?"

Sighing miserably, Cosima swishes her wine around her glass, looking down. "I know. It's too much to ask."

Gail tilts her head back to stare at the ceiling for a minute. She should walk away right now. If she had any self-preservation skills, she would. "I'll trade you," she says finally.

"Really?" Cosima says skeptically.

"Information for information. If I do this for you, you tell me what the _hell_ is going on with your British twin and all this crap you aren't telling me now."

Cosima chews at her lip, furrowing her brow.

"If I help you, you'll have to trust me."

"Yeah," Cosima says. "I guess. I'll have to—well—I guess I won't tell them."

Gail points at her. "See. That is what you're going to fill me in on."

Putting up her hands, Cosima says, "I really don't have a choice at this point. You've got me."

"Oh, how flattering." Gail pulls a notebook and pen out of her pocket (cop blood and all). "I'm going to need some details. Name of your girl. Name of the mother. Name of the person you think took her? Is that too much to ask?"

"Ah." Cosima looks stricken. "Of course. Well. Kira… um, Kira Sadler. Or Manning. Her guardian is Siobhan Sadler. You're going to, um, you're going to see that her mother is deceased. That—"

"Your sister? Your British twin is deceased?"

Running a hand over her face, Cosima looks seriously stressed out. "According to the system, yeah. Can you just—for this one day, can you just ignore that? It's just a, a glitch. A moving part. Can you just…"

"Okay, you know what, yeah." Gail makes a note. "Mother deceased. Now, the person who took her?"

"Rachel Duncan. She works for some batshit corporation that may go by the name Neolution, they have holdings in Toronto. There's another guy, an Aldous Leekie, he may be a known associate or an employee or something. They're some high-brow shit, I don't know if you'll even be able to find anything. But anything… I guess anything will help at this point."

"Okay." Gail makes a final note and flips her notebook closed, then takes a good look at Cosima, her head bowed over her wine, and asks, "Are you going to be okay?"

Inhaling slowly, Cosima tilts her head toward Gail and smiles, kind of like a grimace. "Sure. I have to get back to—to my sister. We have to keep… trying."

Reaching out, Gail puts a hand on Cosima's shoulder. She presses down a little. "Take care of yourself. I'll call you in a few hours."

"Yeah." Cosima lifts one hand in a half wave, and Gail takes off.


	5. Chapter 5

At the station, anyone who asks hears that she's pulling overtime to make up for missed shifts. Desk work. Paperwork. The usual. She finds a computer as isolated as you can get in a bull pen and starts running searches. They keep records, but she's sure she can pass it off as some case. In fact, Sarah Manning brings up files from another station in the city. She's never been there, doesn't know any of the detectives, but they shouldn't be able to see her looking. As far as she knows.

The girl in the morgue does look like Cosima's British twin. Shit, does that make it a British triplet? What kind of glitch has a dead girl in the morgue with the same _face_ as a person who is still alive? Her head starts to spin.

She probably looks like a criminal, hunched over the keyboard and stealing furtive looks around frequently, slurping at a travel cup of coffee. But no one notices, or no one cares.

Not that she's able to find much. No records for Rachel Duncan, including birth and licencing. Records for Aldous Leekie as a scientist and lecturer in the U.S. No recorded connection between them. She tries googling and hits something that seems productive but turns out to be a conspiracy site about genetic engineering. Whatever, maybe that's Cosima's secret, but it doesn't exactly help them find the little girl.

Then, on a hunch, she runs Cosima's PhD profile photo through facial rec.

And her world explodes.

Relatively, because she isn't the one with a missing daughter, seven years old by birth records. She sits at the computer for a while, staring at the screen, trying to make sense of it all. Finally, she writes on her notepad, _Nothing makes sense anymore_, and carries on with her search.

She looks into the real estate end of things, searching for the names she has and Neolution. She finds the name, an actual name on paper and she finally feels like she's getting somewhere. Not so great with tracing things through holding companies and all that but she manages; this is what takes her hours and has her at the end of her day sore and bewildered by the sunrise. She finds a property and she finds holding companies. She traces them back as far as she can, looking for _names_, human names this time. Every new name (CEO, CFO, building manager, signatory) she runs through a new search.

At the end of the day, she has six properties. Most of them appear to be unoccupied, by city and zoning records. They are all connected, however tangentially, to that one instance of the word Neolution in her files.

She prints everything, noting down her use of force time and force resources and assigning a fake case number for now, which she will hopefully be able to change later. If she doesn't get any further into this.

After the stack of papers is on her desk, neatly tabbed and colour-coded (because she has to control something about this, Jesus Christ and has she ever used his name more in vain than now), she calls Cosima.

"Gail, oh my god, did you find anything?"

"I take it you guys aren't having much luck."

"We're having… a kind of luck. Please just tell me: anything at all?"

Gail tells her the bare bones of what she found and how she found them, promising the backtracing is faint but certain. "I have it all on paper here. Can I bring it to you?"

"Fuck, you might as well at this point. We're at - Road west of Spadina. Can you find it?"

"No problem. I'm a cop in the city, I know my streets."

"Yeah, it's a little off the beaten path." She gives Gail directions to a building that will look deserted, she says, but climb the stairs to the top and you'll see a door. There's a knock, she says, and Gail notes it down, reminding herself to shred her notes when she's done.

Tonight, she has a car, which she's been blessing, but it sticks out a little in the neighbourhood she's heading to. Still, she'd rather have it there, have a way out, even if it risks—uh—everything happening to it. She's a cop's girl, a cop's brother, so her car has every safety measure you can legally have. She'll have to trust it.

What is all this shit about trust, anyway? Didn't she just have the ultimate trust-crushing breakup?

Walking into the building, she keeps her hand on her knife. Walking up the stairs, she pulls it and holds it point down at her side. At the door, which isn't really a door, she does the knock. It's opened, after a moment, by a willowy fey gentleman wearing an apron covered in paint.

"Who's this, then?" he asks, giving her the once-over.

Sarah appears behind him. "She's Cosima's cop friend. Treat her nice or she'll arrest you."

"A cop, Sarah? Here?"

"It was her idea!" Sarah points back at the couch, and there's Cosima.

She waves to Gail, busy at a laptop, and manages to say, "She won't arrest you unless you commit a crime, Fee. For our purposes, she's a friend."

"And _she_ is in the room! Pleased to meet you all, I'm Gail, I'm the cop, and I know a whole heckuva lot more than I did a few hours ago."

"I told you she'd see too much," Sarah says, a warning, and Cosima waves Gail closer and grins.

Gail sits down on the couch next to her and Cosima says in her ear, "Sarah's understandably tense, but she's kind of always tense. We're being nice."

"I can be nice," Gail murmurs back. "Waaait," she says, drawing the word out. "No, that was wrong. I can't be nice. I'm gonna stay quiet."

Cosima holds up a wine bottle in offer and says, "I know you weren't drinking, but it takes the edge off…"

"One glass should be fine. I've got a lot of edge," and off Cosima's questioning look, "I've been mainlining coffee since I got up, which to be fair was at two this morning."

"Okay, whisperers!" Sarah says sharply. "You came because you have something?"

"Yes," Gail says, and goes into duty mode for a moment. "I found six properties whose holdings traced back, whether directly or indirectly, to a document that explicitly used the name Neolution. I can't swear that they're connected, but the traces are strong enough to be definitely suspicious."

She holds at that, checking Sarah for interest. She's intrigued, so Gail goes on.

"I have the documents here, signing over deeds and the like—the names don't match the ones you've given me but based on the backtracing, they may or may not be involved—or real people. I have the zoning for each building, and details on which are occupied and for what purposes. I also have the blueprints for each building."

Sarah begins sifting intently through the many, many pages, and Gail looks to Cosima.

"This is good. This is seriously good. I can't believe you actually found something. We're in your debt. Seriously. I already said that, but it's true."

Gail gives her a look, a _You know what your debt is_ look with a little raise of the eyebrow to suggest a bit of something extra. Cosima smirks, so she figures it was okay (considering). Then she sinks into the couch beside Cosima, and says, "What are you working on?"

"Leekie lectured at my school. I'm trying to find a pattern in his appearances, which are mostly documented, and seeing if I can build any kind of profile or background. We have approximately nothing on Rachel Duncan, so."

"And," she speaks into Cosima's ear. "What has Sarah been doing?"

Cosima turns her face to her, their cheeks brushing, and says back, quiet as she can, "Pacing, mostly. Her skill set isn't really applicable in this situation."

"That being?"

"More… physical intimidation and occasional thievery plus drug posession, but don't narc on her."

"No ma'am."

"No more whispering!" barks Sarah.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:**_ Second-last chapter!_

* * *

Sarah goes on in a normal (if tightly-wound) tone, "These are good: information to go on; but we need to work out a plan. Are we going to check each property? Is that the best use of our time?"

"It's the best lead we've had so far," Fee says from behind them. Gail twists around to find him standing at an easel, leaning back to appraise his work so far. The painting is dark, frantic, and as she looks around the room she sees more of the same—mostly featuring versions of Cosima and Sarah and… whoever else has the same face, with different hairstyles and wildly varying personalities on the canvas.

"Fee thinks best when he's painting," Cosima explains, and Gail nods, then turns back to Sarah.

"If you don't have anything better, then yeah, I'd say our best use of time would be to vet and veto each and every one of these properties. It's something and it sounds like more than you've been doing so far."

Sarah looks furious, though Gail tries not to take it personally.

"What've we got as far as transport goes?" Fee asks, coming into their area of the room with his palette.

"I've got a car," Gail says, "though it is traceable to me if there's any reason for someone to take my plates."

"I've got a rental," Cosima says, "Also traceable, obviously."

"Okay, we'll split up," Fee says. "Since I have the most experience dealing with Sarah in," he gestures vaguely at her whole person, "states such as these, I'll take her in Cosima's car. Cosima and Gail can go in the other. Good?"

Sarah walks away to pace and grumble on the other side of the room.

"Sounds good to me," Gail says, and goes through the papers quickly, her colour-coding coming in handy as she splits the properties between them. Thinking of her knife, she says, "Do we know what we might be walking into here? Is it dangerous?"

Fee and Cosima look at each other, their eyebrows doing things.

Finally, Cosima takes it, saying, "We don't really know anything. When Sarah met Rachel Duncan, there was an armed guard. That's all we know."

"Well, we'd better not draw attention to ourselves, then. Shit, this could be a really bad idea."

Cosima watches her silently, clearly wanting to give her an out but wanting to get Kira back even more.

Gail tilts her head and puts a hand up, palm to the sky. "Let's get on with this, then. Full stealth mode—Fee?" He nods, salutes, and walks off to deal with Sarah; Cosima comes closer, taking her hand and wrapping both of hers around it.

"You've done stuff like this," she says, unsure.

Gail laughs. "No. I'm a cop. We don't do things like this."

"But ops. Secret… ops?"

"Secret ops." Gail nods. "No fucking thing like this."

"I have to tell you you can leave now," Cosima says, winding herself around Gail's arm, keeping her hand tight. "I need to give you the out. You don't have a stake in this."

Closing her eyes, Gail inhales through her nose. "Maybe I do, now."

Cosima presses their bodies together, releasing one of her hands to wrap her arm around Gail's waist. "I promise you'll be rewarded," she whispers into her ear, and Gail shivers.

"We'll see."

"If you're done dry-humping," Sarah says loudly from the other side of the room. "We're leaving."

They break apart, but Cosima holds on to Gail's hand, and Gail wouldn't like to admit how much strength she draws from that.

Gail drives, of course; she knows the city and Cosima mostly watches out the window. They see parts of Toronto Cosima would never, ever have another reason to see. Not the most attractive parts, but still. It's the middle of the day and thank God they've missed rush hour, but getting around the city is never the easiest thing when it isn't prostitute-and-drug-dealer o'clock. The first property is by the docks, not all that far from Fee's, um, apartment, so they start there.

The middle of the day also means that if the building has a use, it's in it, and if it doesn't, ones nearby will. But they play up the tourist angle, and it's a beautiful day.

The first property is a warehouse on the docks. Gail knows how to clear a warehouse, and luckily there's no one around while they circle the building and slip in an unlocked door.

The second property is a floor of an office building, not a nice one and not one that's heavily occupied. They take the elevator up but there's a key card reader for the floor. Not the ones above or below, so they go above and below, and Gail may or may not climb into the ceiling (just a little) to try to figure out if there's any occupation. Nothing.

They're keeping up with Fee and Sarah by phone in the car, and they haven't been finding much of anything either.

The third property is a house in the west end, and Cosima and Gail look to each other with a terrified, excited, _this might be it_ look. They park around the corner and pore over the blueprints, checking out the neighbourhood from where they sit. Luckily it's a lower middle class, edging into working class neighbourhood, which means most people are at work, at school, or sleeping off their night shift. There's an old lady sweeping her porch, so Cosima takes one of the folders and holds it like she's got some kind of official reason to knock on the door.

From the sidewalk they can see a guard behind the front door, so they go up to the house next door, glancing over nonchalantly as they mime knocking on the door and waiting for a response. The windows are all covered, the curtains looking normal from the street but completely opaque when you get up close. Gail and Cosima share another look and walk around the corner to teleconference with Fee and Sarah.

Rather, Gail and Cosima call Fee and Sarah and apprise them of the situation, and then Cosima apologetically asks if Gail can wander off for a minute while they discuss _other matters_. Sure, Gail can be the outcast. No problem. She goes back to the car and flips on the radio, wondering what she's supposed to do while waiting to find out the plan for some kind of break-and-enter-rescue attempt.

Cosima returns and gets into the passenger seat, turning to her over the console. "Okay, Gail, this is your time to get out. If you have any general ideas for this kind of op from the police side, we would love them, but things are going to get hairy and I don't want to involve you in that. You've done enough already and I won't let you commit crimes for us." Her face is set, determined.

"But what if—"

"It doesn't matter, Gail, this is our mess, not yours, and you just—your role ends now. It has to. I'm not budging on this."

Gail runs her hands over her face and through her hair, then drops them and leans forward on the edge of her seat. "I am going to be freaking out worrying about you."

Cosima makes a shrug-wince-grimace that expresses her feeling perfectly. "I know. I would be too. But we have to do this. You don't. And I promise I'll bring you your reward when it's all over and done."

A little smile sneaks up at that and Gail tucks it back away. Cosima reaches across the console and takes her hands, rubbing her fingers over Gail's knuckles.

"Break a leg, I guess," Gail says.

"Thanks." And Cosima gives Gail's hands one last squeeze, then turns and gets out of the car.


	7. Chapter 7

Gail watches her walk away and then she drives back to the apartment. The guys are freaking out, apparently, wondering where she's been all night and day, but she can't deal with it and so she locks herself in her room with cheesy popcorn and a romcom, because it's better than drinking herself into a stupor and it's the only other thing she can think of to do. She tries to stay awake, but it's been a ridiculous day and she passes out halfway through the movie.

It's her phone that wakes her up, because she didn't silence it before she passed the fuck out, and it's Cosima, so she just puts it to her ear, knowing Cosima will be too excited to wait for her to say hello anyway.

"Gail? Oh my god. You are not going to believe this. I can't tell you what happened—I can't, you need plausible deniability, but it was terrifying and yet exhilarating and we got her, we got Kira, and we got more than that. I can't tell you what, but we have something that we think will give us at least a little breathing room and make those fuckers think a little harder before they come after us again and oh my god, I can't believe this, I am so all over the place. I don't even know," and she pauses for breath, or because she ran out of words.

Gail laughs into the phone, her voice husky from sleep. "Wow. Cosima. I'm so glad. You have no idea how glad I am."

"Some things went bad—I should say—I mean—but I can't tell you everything. But we got her. I'm just on such a high but also I haven't slept in like two days? I don't know what to do with myself. Fee is with a guy and Sarah is with Kira and they went—well they decided to get away from the city. Anyway, I'm just sitting here and I can't stop thinking and I—"

"Whoa," Gail says, and coughs some of the huskiness out. "Do you want me to meet you at your hotel? I just slept, so we can hang out or you can sleep or, you know, whatever."

"Yes! Yes, please. That would be so great. Okay, I'll see you soon."

Gail laughs again at her excitement. "See you."

She doesn't even raise her hand to knock before Cosima is pulling it open, reaching out to tangle her fingers in the front of Gail's shirt and pulling her inside.

They kiss hastily, and Gail still has a dream on her tongue but Cosima is awake enough for both of them. When Gail opens her eyes, she sees Cosima staring at her and she starts to laugh, breaking away. Cosima is just grinning at her and Gail says, "What?"

"This is the best medicine," Cosima says, and pulls Gail back in. Slowing down a little, she laps at the roof of Gail's mouth and tastes her. She starts backing toward the bed and Gail hooks her fingers through the belt loops of Cosima's jeans as they move clumsily together. When they hit the bed, Cosima drops onto her back and then immediately flips them around and starts working on Gail's jeans.

She's full of nervous energy that she feeds into a single-minded focus on Gail's body, which, yeah, Gail's not going to complain. Instead she lies back, hands fluttering over and around Cosima's head and shoulders, and raises her body to Cosima's mouth.

Gail comes once and Cosima is going for another when… this is so not flattering… she falls asleep on Gail's thigh. Gail laughs silently and reaches down to pet at her face with her fingertips. It's awkward to get out from under someone when they're, like, inches from your bare crotch, but Gail manages, and then she drags Cosima up the bed a little and flips the cover up over her. She looks so darling that Gail just has to bend down and kiss her cheek, though that would do her rep no favours.

After using the washroom, Gail wanders around a little and finds a file folder with "GAIL" written on a sticky note on the front. She opens it and finds pages of women who look like Cosima. Their citizenships. Their birth dates. She'd seen some of this at the station, but her heart beats fast and her mouth goes dry.

Sitting down heavily on the couch, Gail reads the folder cover-to-cover; after every few paragraphs or numbers she looks up and stares at the wall for a minute. The DNA tests. The fingerprints. She's had time to do a little processing since what she found out at the station, but that hasn't really helped. She can't seem to wrap her head around it. I mean, sure, she was twelve when they made Dolly the Sheep, but that seemed like a _huge deal_ at the time, and then there were all the debates about whether human cloning was ethical. Didn't they, like, _stop working on it_?

Her head is spinning again. Who else knew about this? How did they keep it such a secret? Was everyone just lying to the public? Everyone who?

Jesus Christ.

Cosima did say Neolution was batshit, so maybe they were a fringe group. Maybe that conspiracy theory website was only part right. Maybe it's not as awful as it seems.

But still, Cosima… Gail looks up at her, sleeping so angelically in the bed. How did you live with this knowledge about yourself?

Putting the folder back on the table, Gail stands up and stretches, cracking her neck. Then she crawls into bed next to Cosima, tugging on the folded blanket to get it over both of them. She wraps her arms around Cosima and snuggles up to her side. Cosima feels warm and solid and soft, as human as anyone she's ever met, and Gail just flat-out hates the idea of some guy with his grimy fingers all up in her genes.

When she wakes up, hours later, she blinks open her eyes to find Cosima's close. Without her glasses they look huge and lush with lashes and Gail smiles and kisses her mouth.

She finds one of Cosima's hands and links their fingers before saying, "So you're…?"

"A clone," Cosima replies, tone mild and conversational. "It's a secret… obviously."

"And you, I mean they, they're all over the world?"

"Right. Eight countries that we know of, but there's no reason to suppose we've found them all. We could be finding them for… for years to come."

Gail cocks her head, watching Cosima. "That must be weird."

Smiling, Cosima squeezes Gail's hand. "It's very weird. It's the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me. But I've been high a lot, so my threshold for weird stuff is pretty high."

"Can you say high once more?"

She scrunches up her nose. "_High_."

"So you're just… taking this in stride?"

"Honestly, yeah. It's fucked up, but there's no way to change the facts. The important thing is to not let these Neolution whackjobs get any more power. But," she makes a face, "I shouldn't talk to you about that."

For a moment, Gail watches Cosima in silence, and then she says, "You're pretty amazing, you know." And softly, "Why do you have to live in Minnesota?" as she kisses her again.

When they have sex again, they know it will likely be the last time. They're both matter-of-fact people, and neither of them is up for a long-distance relationship; they don't have enough free time to be taking frequent jaunts across the country, and then there's the host of commitment, trust, and abandonment issues (unless that's just Gail).

They don't say it out loud, but it's silently understood, and Gail takes the opportunity to memorize and worship every inch of Cosima's body. Its perfection makes her dizzy, and she relishes in repaying Cosima for her earlier service; though of course Cosima then decides to tip the scale again.

As she is leaving, Cosima writes down her email address and extracts a promise that Gail will send her a note to say hi. Oddly, Gail actually means it.

At the door, Cosima says, "Thank you, for everything. I mean it. You were unbelievable."

With the tiniest smirk, Gail replies, "So were you."

They share a last, soft kiss, and then Gail is out on the streets of Toronto, feeling a bit like a newborn with all her senses heightened. Walking back down Queen Street, she has the most bittersweet swirl of emotions in her chest. She is really, genuinely grateful to have met Cosima and had this time with her, but it fucking sucks to walk away from something that actually feels pretty positive, especially when most other things decidedly don't. She's going to be lonely now, she knows.

What she doesn't know is that in the not-so-distant future, she's going to meet Holly Stewart, forensic pathologist. The first few times she sees her, the similarities to Cosima—brown hair, glasses, utterly geeky passion for science—will cause her heart to stutter. The next few times, the stutter will be all Holly.

She emails Cosima, leading with, "You are not going to believe the person I'm hanging out with…" and Cosima tells her that she's met someone too. A blonde with a French accent.

"Ooh la la," Gail emails back, obviously.

Without a hitch, they slide right into friendship; Cosima can finally vent to someone unconnected when clone stuff goes down, and Gail can talk about how she feels like she doesn't fit in with the rookies at 15. They don't judge. They don't sugarcoat.

Vague plans are made for a someday double date, with Cosima promising to get Gail high (not that she will confirm or deny her agreement to that) and Gail promising to feed Cosima poutine.

In short, life goes on.

_The end._


End file.
